The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | Roman Reigns DESTROYS CM Punk, Tony Khan bids for WWE, Ricochet apologizes

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Jason is back with thoughts on the death of Dennis Condrey, one half of the Midnight Express, and his contribution as one of the greatest tag team wrestlers of all time, as well as the death of actor Chuck Norris and his involvement in the wrestling world (02:25). News on Dennis Rodman being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame and his history with WCW, as well as breaking news on another induction, "Sycho" Sid Vicious, who joins their legacy class of 2026 (09:02). Then, key takeaways from Monday Night Raw in Boston, with Roman Reigns destroying CM Punk, Oba Femi once again leveling Brock Lesnar, and Gunther being MIA for the third straight week (15:59). Plus, news on a successful WWE ticket promotion for 3/16 Day (47:41), Tony Khan bidding to acquire WWE in 2023 when the company was up for sale (52:17), fallout from AEW Revolution, with an update on Ronda Rousey, and Ricochet's apology after his embarrassing tweet (58:39). Also, former WWE star Ted DiBiase, Jr. acquitted of all charges in his Mississippi fraud case, while another former WWE star speaks with Ariel Helwani about the incident that ended his recent run with the company (1:10:44). The show ends with some listener Q&A on Cody Rhodes' potential heel name, the Bret Hart WrestleMania match that we almost got in 1986, and why one of DDT Pro Wrestling's biggest stars was just forced into an early retirement (1:18:19).

It's the uncrowned wrestling show for Tuesday, March 24th, 2006. I'm Jason Solomon. You want to feel old 25 years ago yesterday. I logged on to www.com, what did I see? A giant graphic telling me that WWF had purchased WCW, its biggest competitor. And thus, it was the end of an era. It was the end of the Monday Night War. Although, to be fair, it hadn't been much of a war for a war.

while by that point. That was a Friday, and that Monday was the famous raw nitro simulcast, where Shane McMahon stood in the ring on Nitro, the final Nitro in Panama City Beach, and said, I now own WCW. And it became a story point in some phony feud between the McMans. And the wrestling business was a lot worse off for it. You know, less competition is never a good thing. But because WW won, you know, the winner gets to write history the way that they see it. So the narrative over the years has become Vince McMahon killed WCW and he beat Ted Turner. By the end there, Ted Turner had nothing to do with WCW. The AOL-Time Warner merger was his undoing.

And WCW did more to kill itself than Vince McMahon ever did. It'd be like throwing yourself in front of a bus. And then the next person who walks by stands over your dead body and says, hey, look what I did. Quarter of a century, though, has passed since then. It's a while to think about. We'll get into what happened in Boston last night on Raw and where things stand for WrestleMania.

I've got news on Tony Kahn making a bid for WWE that was previously unknown, an update on Rhonda Rousey's AEW status, and a lot more. I do want to take a moment here to mention that, for those who don't know, we now have a dedicated podcast feed for the Uncrowned Wrestling Show. still get the show on the main Ariel Helwani show feed. That is not changing.

You can get the Uncrown Wrestling show and all your other combat sports content. But there is now a dedicated feed for those of you who wish to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, all the usual podcast platforms. So go ahead and search for that. Sadly, there were a couple of deaths this week that tie into the wrestling sphere that I need to start with. One in particular, a major name from the past, one of the greatest tag team wrestlers of all time. A lover boy Dennis Condry of the Midnight Express died on Friday at the age of 76. The man had survived four different battles with cancer.

And to learn the details around his passing, which had nothing to do with cancer. I just learned about it last night. Jim Cornett talked about it on his show. To learn the details is heartbreaking. Condry's wife of 33 years, Teresa, who works in nursing, was at work on Friday. She texted him around 4 o'clock in the afternoon that her shift was ending, and he didn't answer his phone, which was unusual. And then when she looked out in the parking lot, normally he would be there to pick her up,

and she saw that he wasn't there. She knew something was wrong. And she had a neighbor go to the home to basically do a welfare check. And it turns out he had fallen in the... their hallway at home. And the way he fell, he broke his neck and badly damaged his spinal cord. And their neighbor found him laying on the floor. He was alive. He was conscious. He was aware of what was going on. They had to turn him over. He was unable to move because he was paralyzed from the chest down. And he ended up on a respirator and it was just downhill from there. And as Cornette was

saying, you know, people are going to think, man, this guy took bumps in the ring for almost half a century, you know, one fall in the hallway and he breaks his neck. You know, how is that possible? But who knows what shape his neck was in at that point, you know, after all the bumps and the cancer battles, I know all too well about this. My aunt was paralyzed from the waist down. You know, when a fall at home last year, she's still with us. Yeah, but she's still in the hospital six months later. And she's a little bit older than Conjory was. When you get to a certain age, you know, one bad fall could be the end. You know, your body's a lot weaker. You got, you You have brittle bones?

I mean, you're not a spring chicken anymore. But he had spoken to his wife about retiring from her job so that they could spend more time together. And she was less than two weeks away from retirement. And then this happens. Very sad. When you think about tag team wrestling, if you are of a certain age, you think of the Midnight Express. You think of the Rock and Roll Express and the Road Warriors, right? And teams like that from just a bygone era of wrestling.

But I promise you, a lot of tag teams today grew up watching Dennis Condry and beautiful Bobby Eaton, managed by Jim Coronet. They were all put together by Bill Watts and Mid-South Wrestling, which is where they first feuded with Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson. You know, and those two teams, they traveled thousands of miles up and down the roads, and they made a lot of money together. You know, if you ever see a hot tag in a match these days, that ain't nothing compared to the hot tags you would have seen in those matches. They took their feud to the NWA. The Midnights, they were one-half of a very famous or infamous match at Starcade 86. It was a scaffold match, the one where Jim Coronet dropped down off the scaffold. He was supposed to be caught by Big Bubba, who missed him because Bubba was high as a kite,

and he was three feet off, and Cornett blew out both his knees on the landing. And after Conjury left in 87, Stan Lane took his place, and the Midnight experienced. Express was just as successful in that iteration. You know, take your pick on which one you prefer. I grew up, you know, as a fan in the Northeast, I was watching WWF as it was back then. So my teams were demolition and the Heart Foundation. Those are my two teams growing up. So I was very conflicted at Summer Slam in 1990, as you would imagine.

I knew of the road warriors from the magazines. They just had that cool look with the shoulder spikes. But it wasn't until years later that I fully appreciated. the greatness of the Rock and Roll Express and the Midnight Express. And, you know, he had a career that spent nearly 40 years and over 50 championships. He's not in the WWE Hall of Fame, but he should be. It's crazy to me that in a company that has inducted people who never even worked for them, and Dennis Condry is one of those people.

He never wrestled for WWE that the Midnight Express would not be in, but the Rock and Roll Express is. That needs to be corrected at some point. It's just too bad that Condry and Bobby Eaton, won't be around to see it. AEW paid respect to him a few years ago in the ring with CM Punk and FTR. And there is a GoFundMe set up to help support his widow, Teresa, with some heavy hitters in the industry donating. So you can too, if you wish to do so.

I know Dax Harwood of FTR is the one running the campaign and has a link to it up on his social media. Now, I said there was more than one name that we lost. The other one. more notable in movies and TV than he was in wrestling. Actor Chuck Norris died on Thursday at the age of 86. There was a TMZ story that mentioned that he was rushed to the hospital in Hawaii, but at the time it said he was in good spirits,

and then a few hours later, he became one. He did make a cameo in the crowd at WrestleMania 7 in Los Angeles, but it was the Survivor Series in 1994 where he was brought in to be the ringside enforcer for the casket match. between the Undertaker and Yoko Zuna. Their second such match that year on pay-per-view. The first one, there was something like 10 guys ran in. It was ridiculous.

And Undertaker lost. So he called on the one man who could keep law and order to watch his back. Chuck Norris, who roundhouse kicked Jeff Jared in the face when he tried to interfere. God, when I was younger, there was always some combination of Delta Force or missing an action on TV on the local. I think it was Channel 11 here in New York. He was either Channel 11 or Channel 9, maybe both. And they aired those movies constantly. And then, of course, years later, USA Network would air Walker, Texas Ranger

reruns every week as the lead-in to Monday Night Raw, so I would see the tail end of it. That's about as much as I saw of Walker, Texas Ranger, was usually the last 60 seconds or so. Outside of that and the clips that I would see through Conan O'Brien's old show where he had his Walker, Texas Ranger lever, that he would pull randomly and it would play some absurd clip from the show. You would think the show was a sitcom.

But anyway, good times. Now, I mentioned WCW before. We got our latest announcement this past week for the WW Hall of Fame class of 2006. ESPN broke the news that The Worm, Dennis Rodman, who never actually worked for WWE. He actually did more in AEW than he ever did in WW. He will be inducted as part of a class that already, already include Stephanie McMahon, AJ Stiles, and Demolition.

That'll be on Friday night, April 17th after Smackdown in Las Vegas. That is the night before WrestleMania. Rodman in Vegas. That's a bad combination. But he worked three matches in WCW. He's best known for being a card-carrying member of the New World Order, which was a big deal back then. Rodman was a big part of that Chicago Bulls dynasty in the 90s. He won five NBA titles with two teams.

He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. This is going to be his second Hall of Fame. Cool as Rodman memory for me was that first ever Jimmy Hendrix entrance that Hollywood Hogan ever had. He was at the United Center. And Rodman came walking out with him to voodoo child. You know, we hear the word aura get tossed around a lot these days. That whole entrance was just the very definition of aura.

Bash at the Beach 97 saw Rodman team with Hogan against Lex Lugar and the Giant, and he didn't look too bad in that match. Can't say the same thing for Bash of the Beach 98, which saw him tag with Hogan again. This was the more popular and famous of the two matches. Rodman just looked absolutely terrible. He was clearly just either hungover or under the influence of something in that match. But in that match, they wrestled Diamond Dallas Page and Carl Malone,

another NBA star, who just so happened to be playing for the team that Rodman and the Bulls were playing against in the NBA finals that year. I mean, Eric Bischoff had to be just happier than a pig and shit to score that one. Rodman made headlines at the time for skipping a team practice during the finals to fly to Nitro. They even got into it on the court, him and Malone, during one of the games, and Bob Costas didn't like that very much. He thought it demeaned Carl Malone. We can't be demeaning Carl Malone. Oh, I think there were other things that demeaned Malone far more than that. Although, to be fair to him, Costas, that is, he probably didn't know about it back then.

A lot of people didn't, I didn't. Which is why you don't see a lot of Carl Malone these days. Good. Let him stay hidden. Rodman also worked a singles match on a WCW pay-per-view against macho man Randy Savage, which turned out to be one of Savage's last matches. In AEW a few years ago, Rodman made two appearances, one on an episode of AEW collision, and another at their all-out pay-per-view in 2023.

He was in the corner of the acclaimed and Billy Gunn. Now, Hogan should have been the one to do the induction, but unless they want to have a seance, that's not going to happen. Carl Malone, he should not come within 50 feet of that place. DDP, he was never a member of the NW. So my thought process is Eric Bischoff would make sense as the one to induct him. And if not Bischoff, then maybe get Kevin Nash to do it. And as I am sitting here talking about Dennis Rodman going into the WWE Hall of Fame,

I got a text message here on my phone. I didn't glance down at it until just now from a friend. Breaking news here in real time as this is being recorded with news of yet another Hall of Fame induction. Triple H made the announcement on social media just a little while ago that psycho Sid vicious will join the class of 2006 as part of its legacy class. Legacy because unfortunately Sid passed away a couple of years ago so he will not be around to give a speech or be a part of the induction ceremony but that is a

well-deserved induction, a well-deserved addition to the class of 2006. I was a big Sid fan. Sid is someone who I've said this before. If you were to build the ultimate pro, like the quintessential pro wrestler in a a laboratory. What would he look like? He would look like Sid. It was incredible. Everywhere this man went, he was over. It didn't matter where. WW, WCW, ECW, if you remember that ECW run that he had where he would just come out and just power bomb people. Everywhere this man went, he made money and he was super over. And this is what Triple H said in his tweet. No matter which moniker you knew him by, Sid's intensity

was palpable across the ring and through your TV screen. A multi-time champion in W.D.' and WCW in a two-time WrestleMania main eventer. It is a pleasure to announce that he will take his rightful place in the 26th legacy class of the WWE All of Fame. That is great news. I'm very happy to hear that. He was one of those names like Demolition, who's also going in this year,

that were just glaring omissions. And there are others, too. But you can check one more name, at least off the list. And he mentioned two WrestleMania is there. It's true. The two WrestleMania. is the only two manias that Sid ever appeared in both times he was in the main event. That was 1992 and 1997.

And always an entertaining promo. Sometimes in the so bad it's good way. But then there were other times where he was a really good promo. You know, when he had that thing about where he would like talk very low and really get you to kind of lean in and listen to what he was saying. But I like Sid a lot. And I'm glad that he's getting his flowers. now. Too bad it couldn't happen a little bit sooner, but better late than never. But the Hall of Fame class is shaping up nicely. We have AJ Styles. We have demolition. And now we have Psycho Sid joining

the class. So that's very cool. It sounds like John Sina has come up with an idea for what his next WWE role will be. He was answering fan Q&A during Megacon in Orlando and said this, I'm working diligently to try to figure out my next path as a contributing useful member of WWE. I think I might crack the code and I think we have something. And if the stars align and everybody signs off, I will be a whole lot more integrated in the system. And I'm very excited about the road ahead. I'm just crossing my fingers that it works. Now, you couple that with AJ Stiles and his new role in WWE,

which sounds more like a backstage guidance counselor to the talent than anything else. checking in on them and making sure their morale is good. That's more than 50 years of combined experience between those two. So if you're on that WWE roster or NXT roster, those are two big resources to be plugged into. Unless they make Sina and AJ competing general managers on Raw and Smackdown. See, now that would be interesting. Speaking of Raw and Smackdown, let's talk about Raw here.

Raw was in Boston last night. and we had yet another confrontation between Roman Reigns and CM Punk, who I assume are going to be headlining the second night of WrestleMania this year. Now their first confrontation right after the Royal Rumble was great.

Their second one was good. It wasn't as good as the first one. Their one last week was not very good at all. I actually thought it was very weak. So this was an important follow-up to what we had on the show last week. Punk was the one who came out and he really did the lion's share

of the talking last night. I thought he was very strong. If you remember what happened last week, what triggered CM Punk to put his hands on Roman Raines? Wasn't really anything terribly or deeply personal. He called him old. Old man Phil. And apparently that was just a line too far for CM Punk. And he punched Roman in the face. This week, he went a little bit further into why it bothered him. And it wasn't so much that it was Roman calling him old. He talked about how I don't shy away from it. I am old. And I wear it proudly and, you know, hey, you got punched out by an old man, right? It was who said it. That's what bothered. That's what triggered CM Punk. It was the fact that it was Roman reigns of all people who said it to him. And I don't use

just for men to cover up my gray hairs like Roman does and all of this stuff. The Uso's come out. Now, the Uso, especially J. Uso in particular, has been very volatile lately. He's like a loose canon. Jimmy is the one who's trying to talk some sense into this guy and calm him down. Jay is not happy about the comments that Punk has made recently, feeling that he's disrespected their family. He still wants that apology. He's all wide-eyed. So the Uso's come out. And Jimmy had warned Punk before he went out there. Look, my brother's on the warpath. Just so you're aware. And Jay was ready to throw down. He got into the ring. He just, he wanted a fight. He was squaring up for a fight. And in fact, punk mentioned the fact that, you know what, I just

realized you never got your rematch that you deserved for the World Heavyweight Championship, which if you saw their match back at Saturday Night's main event last year, we don't need to see that rematch. But Punk was ready to give him a rematch right then and there. And eventually Roman Raines finally came out, told his cousins to leave the ring, which they didn't do. Punk made a comment, no, no, why don't you guys stick around? I think your cousin might need you. And Jay just went right after Punk. And Punk knocked them down. And then Jimmy came over. and then Roman caught Punk blindsided him, really, with a Superman punch. But it was Jay Uso as the Usoes were being escorted out by officials and, you know, the general

manager. Roman Raines is about to step out of the ring. And Jay Uso looks up at him and goes, no, no, goes, go get him. He's ordering Roman Rains. He's the one calling out commands like, you know, he's the tribal chief over here. And so Roman gets back in the ring and he gives CM Punk a spear. Jay is still going nuts outside. Get him, get him, you know, give him more.

And so he takes Punk outside, runs him into the ring post a couple of times, and then he power bombs him through the announce desk. I liked it. I liked that we finally got some real physicality from these two. They've been building to it. And again, Punk gave him a shot last week. But this was the first time where there was like a full out assault. Nothing yet on the level of what Cody and Randy Orton have done on SmackDown.

But I think this was something that was needed. I do find the inclusion of the Uso's and the way Jay Uso has been acting. I think it's an interesting wrinkle to the story. You know, Jay Uso coming out and being the Yit man and, you know, cutting these four-syllable promos and everything. I mean, that works for the live crowds. But what we saw last last night, now what we've been seeing, I think, over the last couple of weeks is really more akin to the Jay Uso that we were seeing when the bloodline story and just them as a faction. The OG bloodline was really at its apex, right? Because he was all serious and he was always walking around, all pissed off, right? He was the right-hand man. And we kind of got a glimpse of that last night. Now, I don't know exactly how it's going to factor into the match or the finish of the match at WrestleMania. Feels to me like the Uso's will have, or J. Uso anyway, we'll have some kind of involvement there. I like them being included in the story. What I am less enthusiastic about is the possibility that this is all building to a formal bloodline reunion at WrestleMania.

We kind of already have a reunion. I mean, the cousins are running around every week. but the idea of reuniting the OG bloodline and putting them back together again and putting the belt on Roman, that doesn't appeal to me at all. Because to me, I, as many of you have, I'm sure, sat through all those years of the bloodline. And when it was great, it was great. But it went on for a long time and they moved on from it. And the idea of kind of going back to it again would just make it feel too much like a retread.

Like they're just desperate to go back to the bloodline story because it works so well. and it was so lucrative for them. So let's just go back to some version of it again. I'm not saying that's where they're going. I'm just saying I hope they have something better plan where it's not just a retread of what we've already seen before. That to me is a lot less appealing. But including the Uso's and this kind of J Uso character shift,

the way that they've done at the last few weeks, it has made things a little more interesting. And where things are going to go with him, I don't know. Now, last night on Raw, they were... Now, originally when this match was announced, They announced the Uso's against the vision, Logan, Paul, and Austin Theory. They said nothing last week about it being a tag team title match.

During the week, they suddenly announced it was going to be for the tag team championship. Last night, if you watch the show, you notice that it was not for the tag team titles. Now, it's very interesting. WWE is sending Jimmy and Jay to MLB opening night on Netflix this Wednesday. The Giants are hosting the Yankees.

It's the first MLB game to ever air live on Netflix. so they're going to use it as a chance to promote some of its other programming by having the Uso's there. Could that have been why the match last night with the Uso's and the Vision all of a sudden was not for the tag team titles? Because they wanted the Uso's to show up on Wednesday with the tag team titles. And if that is the reason, then that sounds to me like we're getting a title change next week because they are running that match back for the championships in Madison Square Garden next week. I'll have more on that show a little bit later. Seth Rollins was on the show last night, briefly, but he was there.

He was called out by Paul Heyman. Turned out to be a trap. Paul Heyman was all by himself. Brock Lesner had been there. Brock Lesnar, by the time Paul Heyman came out later in the show for his segment, Brock Lesnar, who was in the opening segment, was probably already mid-flight back home to Saskatchewan. That's why his segments have opened the show for each of the past two weeks and probably will again next week. he wants to get that hell out of there as quickly as possible.

So Brock was gone, Bronson Reed and Bronner, they're on the injured list. Logan Paul at Austin Theory, they had been knocked out with brass knucks earlier in the night. So Paul Heyman is out there all by himself. And he's basically calling out Seth Rollins, which is a little weird. You know, why would he be doing that? Is he laying a trap? So Ninja Rollins comes out through the crowd, pulls off the mask, everybody pops, Oh, it's Seth Rollins.

But then four Boston police officers suddenly appear out of nowhere, big smile on Paul Heyman's face, and the police are escorting Rollins out of the building. And we find out from Hayman that during the week he had taken out a restraining order, you are now in violation of the restraining order, which means you are going to jail. You are going to prison. Your wife is going to divorce you and end up with half the locker room,

he said, which is quite the thing to say. I'm going to adopt your daughter. And that was too far for Seth Rollins. He comes charging back down to the ring. Heyman threw the microphone at him. That didn't really do much. And with one punch, down goes Paul Heyman. Finally, they cuffed him.

As I called him last night, stone cold Seth Rollins or ice cold Seth Rollins before, however you want to bill him. They cuffed him and they took him out of the building. So Seth Rollins is probably sitting in a cell somewhere. Paul Heyman had a big grin on his face, and that is how that segment came to an end. We are still waiting to find out what Seth Rollins will be doing at WrestleMania. We presume Bronbreaker. I'm sure WWE is just fingers crossed, holding their breath, that Bronbreaker will be able to get cleared in time.

He was spotted on Monday at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando. PW Insider reported over the weekend that Breaker was expected at the PC as he is working towards being cleared. He had that emergency hernia surgery many, many weeks ago. There's still no word on a timetable if there's even a realistic chance that he will be back in time. But it feels to me like WWE is banking on that and we're just holding off on the announcement of what Rollins is doing until they get some more clarity on that. Now, Rollins spoke with the Boston Herald this past week. And he commented on the match between Roman Reins and CM Punk and said that he's proud that the World Heavyweight Championship looks like it's going to be featured as the night two main event of WrestleMania.

He said, I'm extremely proud that in all likelihood, the World Heavyweight Championship is going to be featured as the main event on night two, which in my opinion is the true main event of WrestleMania. Roman talked down about it as if it were a second tier title when it was first introduced. And so did a lot of other people. I felt it was extremely important that our world championship wasn't monopolized by a guy who wasn't going to be there enough to help elevate the talent with that title. and that's Roman. He took the part-time schedule, and he's earned that right. On the other hand, we needed a world championship that was going to be represented every week on the raw brand, and that would allow new stars to be created. So I'm very proud that the belt will be in the main event of WrestleMania. Now, Rollins was the first man to hold that latest iteration of the

World Heavyweight Championship. He won it three years ago, beating AJ Stiles in the finals of a tournament to crown a new champion, so I'm sure he has a certain affinity for that belt since he was the first champion. And look, he's not wrong when he talks. And I know he's going, you know, in and out of character with this,

but the facts are facts. And the fact is when Roman Raines had a stranglehold on the top championship and then basically unified the two championships for a while, he rarely appeared on Monday Night Raw, let alone had any title defenses. He was a Smackdown guy.

It was very, very rare that you would even see him on the show on Monday night. That left Rawl without a world champion. And you can only do that for so long. You have to have something at the top to fight for. That's why that championship was created. That's the entire reason why that championship was created, because Roman had a stranglehold on the other titles, and they wanted to keep them on him for a long time.

So we ended up with the world title. And, you know, look, the idea of them headlining night to me, when you're in the WrestleMania main event, night one or night two, they both count as WrestleMania main events. So like CM Punk,

he got his WrestleMania main event last year, as far as I'm concerned. And certainly it was the better of the two main events. I don't think anybody would contest that. You compare night one to night two in terms of the main events. I mean, it's just night and day.

And this will be CM Punk's second WrestleMania main event. But for Rollins, you know, his opinion is that the night two main event, is the true main event. Now, I know a lot of people look at it that way, but to me, when you're in the main event of WrestleMania, you've got 50,000 people out in the stands, even on night one, you're closing out the show. That's the main event. Brock Lesnar and Obafemi, they had their second confrontation. Two weeks in a row now that Obafemi has left Brock Lesnar laying and looking shook at the end of their segment to open the show. I thought last week's segment was excellent. I mean, you want to look at a way to create a way to create. create a star in one night. You go back and watch that segment on the show last week in San Antonio.

What they did last night? Also very good. Where Lesnar and Heyman came out. Obafemi eventually came out. And they went face to face. Brock this time got him up in position for an F5. Oba slips out. And Oba just clotheslines him over the top rope and ass over tea kettle.

There goes Brock Lesner. And he's laying on the floor outside with a look on his face like he cannot believe that he was gotten to for the second week in a row. And the fans are into it. The fans are chanting Oba's name and they're barking and he's sort of lording down looking at Brock. Like this guy finally met his match. This is how you create a new star. And not just a new star, but somebody that feels special.

This is not just another guy. This is a guy that you can see them building around. This is a guy that you can see becoming the face of the brand at some point and leading them into the next era. I know with Paul Levec, we get a new era every other week. But that's the kind of performer that Obafemi is. Like, he can be that guy. And I think Lesnar understands that. And Lesnar is very good.

And I think very underrated by some people in terms of his selling. And selling, I don't just mean selling in terms of how he sells the moves, but just how he sells the story. You know, him being knocked out of the ring, they zoom in on his face. And it could just be the look he has in his eyes or the way he looks out at the crowd, like he's just in shock. And coming from someone like him who was so heavily protect. for so many years and just again feels different than the average performer in WWE because he has that combat sports background which makes him very unique. The story that he could tell just by a simple facial expression cannot be understated.

And that's what he's been doing each of the last two weeks with Obafemi. Now I will say that if it continues on like this, even though they're doing a great job of making Obel look really strong, I mean, unless Brock gets his come up and's very sued, it seems pretty clear who's going over in the match of WrestleMania, but we still have three weeks left to go. I would imagine that Brock is going to get one over on him probably next week. I think

Brock is on the show every week between now and Mania, so he's only going to be able to lay out Brock so many times before that gets old and Brock's got to get some revenge. But I think they've gotten themselves to a place now where even if in the match, Brock was to win.

And I feel like Oba should win, but even if Brock was to win, with the idea that they would build to, let's say, a rematch between the two. They wanted to run it back in Minneapolis, let's say it's SummerSlam or something like that. It's not going to do too much harm to Oba because I think they've done a really good job, a very strong job of establishing him so far. Now, one man who currently has no direction for WrestleMania is Gunther. Three weeks in a row.

This man has not appeared on Monday Night Row. I've heard nothing about an injury. Everyone assumes that he's going to work with Ray Mysterio at WrestleMania. If Ray is cleared, Ray is out with two broken ribs. Kay's got a fractured rib on the left side, a fractured rib on the right side, that he suffered on Raw in a match with Austin Theory at the end of January. We are now approaching the end of March. There has been no update.

We have not seen Ray. We have not seen Gunther since he beat Dragon Lee at the beginning of the month. in hindsight, it would have been better for Gunther to do an open challenge at WrestleMania and not Brock Lesnar because they could have gotten to Brock and Obel without doing an open challenge. And at least with the open challenge gimmick, if let's say Ray was the idea, Ray's hurt, it's going to be touch and go, if he's going to make it back in time,

the open challenge gimmick, you know, you could at least get Gunther on the show in there against somebody. And I guess they could still do it because the open challenge with Brock obviously is closed, but, I mean, given that they just did the gimmick with him, I don't think that's a direction they want to go in. But even if they had an idea for him and Ray, and Ray is hurt and it's not their fault, like the fact that we are even in a position where we are three weeks out from their biggest

show of the year and the man that they chose to put in there in John Cena's final match, he beat John Sina, he tapped out John Sina. And a month later, he beats A.J. Stiles into retirement. And we're heading into WrestleMania. This bit may not even have a match. I mean, I'm fairly certain he'll do something on the show, hopefully not working with jelly roll all of a sudden or something like that, or I show speed.

He was on the show last night. I would like to think they could come up with something a little bit better for him, but I just think him even being in this position in the first place is just such a misfire. All I can do is sit here and shake my head and hope that they could just come up with something halfway decent for him to do on that show, because what a waste of what they have spent time building up over all these months. You know, L.A. Knight also is in a position where I'm not quite sure what, if anything, he's going to be doing on that show. One thing I did notice last night, because somebody

pointed it out to me, was what looked like a Bursa sack in his elbow. I think his left elbow. That was pretty gnarly. It looked like he had a tennis ball sitting in his elbow. So I don't know if that has something to do with why he hasn't wrestled since the elimination chamber at the end of last month. Probably, I would imagine him not being in a match for a month. Probably is injury related. So we'll see how that might affect his status for WrestleMania. But Raw next week is going to be of the world's most famous arena right here in my backyard, Madison Square Garden. And the Uso's are going to be defending their world tag team titles against Logan Paul and Austin Theory in a New York City street fight. And if I had a bet, I would bet that we're

going to have new tag team champions next week. Lash Legend in Nia Jax, they will defend their women's tag team titles against Bailey and Lyra Valciria. All roads seem to lead to a multi-team match of WrestleMania. We've seen different teams getting title shots and the matches just get thrown out. Disqualifications. We saw that with the Bella Twins last week. I'm sure it'll be more of the same.

Next Monday we'll end up with five or six teams fighting for those belts at WrestleMania. And we're getting a match at the Garden between. Eoskei and Raquel Rodriguez. And I was very happy to see that because I was thinking, okay, I guess this is going to be the WrestleMania, man. And I have nothing against Raquel. I think Raquel has improved greatly. And I don't just mean in the ring, but character-wise, I had her as my most improved

in 2025. But Eoskei against Raquel one-on-one, which was something they just started up on TV just a few weeks ago, and there's no real history prior to that between the two of them would have felt like a misuse to me of E.O. Sky. The match I wanted to see was E.O. against O.Ska. And they have done nothing recently to really give that indication until last night. And last night, there was a segment in the back where, yet again, Oskah was verbally abusing Kyrie Sane. And when she left, Eoskeye walked in, and Eoskeye was trying to tell Kyrie, look, you don't have to take abuse from this woman.

and Aska called her away, so off went Kyrie. And then they set the match up with E.O. and Raquel next week. The fact that we even had that interaction gives me hope that this is exactly where we are headed for WrestleMania. And then I saw the IG video that EO posted after the show was over where she said after Raquel, she will deal with Aska and Kyrie. So it feels like we may end up getting Eoski against Aska. at WrestleMania, which would be tremendous. I hope we do. And I hope we can get a resolution to this story that they have been building for months where Kyrie just keeps taking this abuse over and over and over again.

She's like a hostage on Raw every week. And I think the fans are invested enough where if you build to that big moment in Las Vegas where Kyrie finally breaks away from Oscar, it'll get a great reaction. And it'll give us the payoff to this after all these months and we can kind of move on because as entertaining as it's been, now it just feels like they're kind of spinning their wheels every week where, you know, Aska berates her and she leaves, and then you hear her yell Kyrie's name, and then off goes Kyrie. And it was funny at first, but now it's been going on for like six months, and it's like, okay, where is this leading? Well, here's your

moment. Here's your chance to do something fun at WrestleMania. Now, also at WrestleMania, we know that the likely night one main event is going to be Cody Rhodes defending the WWE championship against Randy Orton. Two friends, brothers, a lot of history there between them. We saw what Randy Orton did to Cody a couple of weeks ago, viciously attacked him, bloodied him up. And this week, Cody Rhodes was not on Smackdown.

Randy Orton was actually in several segments on Smackdown. And I like what they did. I like the way they sort of threaded the story throughout the entire episode. Orton came out, he cut a promo in the ring, and honestly, he didn't say anything that we couldn't already put together ourselves just by watching that attack the week before.

The reason that he did what he did, he was expecting to challenge Drew McIntyre at WrestleMania, and he knew in his mind what he had to do. He had to go to a place that he has not been in a very long time and be a version of Randy Orton that we have not seen in a very long time. And then what happened?

Cody Rhodes beats him on Smackdown and wins the WWE title. So now Randy has to go in there at WrestleMania against his friend. And how do I reconcile being the Randy Orton I need to be when I actually have feelings for this guy that is across the ring for me? And when Cody made that comment about no matter what happens at WrestleMania, I'll always love you. It's like a weight was lifted off his shoulders and Randy Orton beat the shit out of him. And he said number 15 is the most.

important thing to me. It's not about anything else except I got to win that 15th World Championship. So they went with what I thought would have been the logical explanation. He didn't just come out and heal on the fans. You people did this. You people made me do this because that's just fucking lazy. So I thought it was fine. It was kind of predictable, but it was a fine promo. And then in the back, there was a segment where Randy Orton bumped into Matt Cardona. Matt Cardona, good friends with Cody Rose. They really had. haven't done a very good job of establishing that on their television show. But I think a lot of people know that the two of them are friends.

And Orton, you know, kind of laid him out and yelled at him. So Jelly Roll was on the show. And Jelly Roll went over to confront Randy Orton a little bit later. And he cuts this long, just impassioned promo, this long speech that he gives Randy, who he's buddies with. They were tag team partners at SummerSlam last year. Randy, I don't know what's going on with you. This is not the Randy Orton that I know, the husband and the father and the good human being.

And, I mean, he must have gone on for just like five minutes straight. It was this great inspirational speech. It was a lot of dialogue to remember, too. So I was very impressed, to be honest with you. I mean, he was cutting a better promo than most wrestlers do. And he was getting through to Randy. And Randy said, you know, I feel bad about what I did to Cardona. What should I do?

and he goes, okay, I know what I have to do. Because he's going to go out to the ring to apologize. And there was one more segment in the back before he went out to the ring where he was back on the phone with this mystery person. We don't know who he was on the phone with last week in that segment on Raw. They did it again on SmackDown. I have some people telling me that maybe he's not on the phone with anybody. He's on the phone with the voices.

And I'm like, man, that would be lame. So I could totally see them doing that. But yeah, that would be very lame. So anyway, he goes out to the ring. He brings out Matt Cardona. Matt Cardona had to be the dumbest man on the face of the earth. Matt Cardona had to be the only person in the world who did not know how this was going to go. And Randy is trying to apologize because he had called him earlier at the show a Mark S.

Stoge and an indie nerd. That's what he called him. And he said, look, I apologize. Look, I love video games. So, like, don't take it personally. I'm sorry. and they hugged and they shook hands and everything seemed to be okay. Everything was copacetic, except, of course, you knew it wasn't.

And then Orton kicked him in the dick, and then he dropped him. And then he did to him, very similar, what he did to Cody Rhodes. He didn't bloody him up, but he took him outside. He was beating his ass on the announce desk, brought the ring steps over. And Orton had to be calmed down. The voices took over. He's got his head in his hands. This all ends with him bringing.

Cardona back into the ring and he places Matt Cardona's left arm inside of a chair, right? He's going to stomp down on the chair. He's going to pelmanize the arm. And Nick Aldous comes out, the general manager. Everyone's trying to stop this guy. And Cardona is laying there. He's conscious. He's actually looking over at Randy Orton, but he's laying there with his arm still in this chair.

And they let so much time go by to where I'm just watching this going, okay, this is. Now, I can only suspend my. my disbelief so much. Like, I'm watching this, and I'm like, why is he still willingly laying there with his arm in this chair? Maybe just call an audible, pull the chair off, go to crawl away, let Orton drag you back. But he's just laying there. Like, he's just accepting his fate.

And then, of course, finally, Randy Orton stomps on the chair and breaks his arm. And I'm like, well, good. He got what he deserved. Be going to be that stupid. You get exactly what you deserve. So now he's a one-arm man. And all of these horrible things are really. Randy Orton has been doing, he continues to get cheered by the fans. In fact, after he stomped on the chair,

I believe they started chanting one more time, one more time. So, I mean, good luck if your goal is to get Randy Orton booed, because that doesn't seem very likely right now. And we're going to get Cody Rhodes back on TV this week. It'll be very interesting to see his reaction, which will be mixed, but how mixed? How mixed is it going to be? Cody is very good. at delivering the fiery, angry, animated baby face promo. We've seen him do this before. I think he knows what to do. I mean, look, they're not dumb.

They know exactly what the reaction is likely going to be when they're out there in the ring together. But I think Cody has that promo in him to try to win the fans back. They're not going to boo Randy, but I don't think it's going to be some sort of overwhelming rejection of Cody either. Cody is going to first be speaking on the Pat McAfee show on Wednesday.

So they're not even waiting until Friday. He'll be on the Pat show about 1 o'clock in the afternoon on Wednesday to talk about everything that's happened. But it's very interesting, you know, coming into this week, how it just felt like they flipped everything with the two WrestleMania-made events were, suddenly I was more interested in looking forward to the Cody and Randy stuff than I was Punk and Roman. Punk and Roman won me back over a little bit last night. I still tend to lean more towards the Cody and Randy stuff. Part of it also is just personally. And I'm sure many of you listening to this right now would agree.

That is a match I've been waiting for them to do for a very long time. I know we got it once in the King of the Ring final, last year or the year before. And there was no story or anything going into it. It was a tournament final. I'm talking about tapping into the history that these two men have had. they haven't done that since Cody came back to the company in 2022. So now that we're finally getting the match, like I'm here for it. And I'm more excited for that as I sit here right now than I am the Roman and Punk stuff.

But I like that, you know, what they did last night to try to amp up the excitement for that one. So I think they're at a good place right now, honestly, as far as the two WrestleMania main events are concerned. Yeah, there's still three weeks to go. There's more that they can do. I actually think they're in a pretty good place now as far as the that goes, not so much the rest of the card. I mean, if we're going to get 14 to 16 matches on the WrestleMania card this year, which has been rumored, there's really only three matches right now that I would say I am excited for or that they've done a good job of really building up.

Three out of a total of more than a dozen is not good. So they have a lot more to flesh out as far as the WrestleMania card goes. Drew McIntyre and Jacob Fatt, too. They're very likely going to have a stipulation match of some kind at WrestleMania. That is, if they survived. We don't know, because the last image of them that we had on SmackDown, they were brawling on some sort of platform on the ledge outside the building in the parking lot,

and then they fell to their doom, and we couldn't see the impact because there was this, conveniently, there was a white fence in the way that was blocking our view of the landing, but they both went flying off the edge of this platform, and I guess we're supposed to believe they splatted on the pavement down below. So we'll find out what their health status is this week.

But that, my guess is, as far as that goes, you could do a false count anywhere match. And if they really take advantage of that stipulation, then I'm all for it. I love me a good false count anywhere match, but only if you take advantage

of the stipulation. You can't just brawl around the ringside area and into the crowd. You got to go backstage. Maybe you go out of the building. You come back into the building. Like, have some fun with it. Like, I think back to,

I always go back to this. There was a hardcore title match. I want to say it was SummerSlam in 1999. It was Al Snow and the Big Bossman. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it was one of the greatest feuds of wrestling, you know, wrestling history. I had fun with it, though. Bossman was just an evil bastard. I mean, cooked the man's dog and fed it to him.

It doesn't get any more evil than that. But I remember they had a hardcore title match and they brawled into the back and they brawled outside. And like the cars are just whizzing by. They're just wrestling through traffic. And there was some sort of bar or restaurant that was like right across the road. And they brawled all the way into, and I know you can't necessarily do that. But back then, man, I mean, they had fucking Al Snow and Hardcore Holly. They brawled into the Mississippi River.

Like, have some fun with it if you're going to have a false cat anywhere stipulation. And they just don't do it. My other thought was if they don't go in that direction, we could be looking at hell in a cell. We had those rumors and reports a few weeks ago that one of the original plans for mania was to do Cody and Drew, keep the belt on Drew until Mania, do Cody and Drew and blow it off inside hell in a cell. Who's to say they don't take the hell in a cell stipulation and give it to these two? WWE did a limited time promotion in celebration of 316 day last week for Stone Cold Steve Austin.

still finding ways to make this company money all these years later, where tickets across the board, including for both nights of WrestleMania, I think all the way through a Smackdown in Kansas City in June, all tickets for a limited time were 31.6% off, and it paid off for them. How about that? You lower the price of tickets and they move a lot faster. What a concept.

WrestleMania Saturday moved over 1,900 tickets. while WrestleMania Sunday moved over 2,200 tickets. So now instead of being 18% behind where they were this time last year in Mania ticket sales, they're only about 11% behind. Per Russell Ticks, they also moved over 1,400 tickets for last week's Smackdown in North Carolina, over 1,000 for this week's show in Pittsburgh, and almost 1,300 for the April 3rd show in St. Louis. I did not even realize that they were bringing Smackdown to St. Louis.

So you thought it was bad how many fans were still cheering Randy Orton after what he did to Cody Rhodes. Wait until they get to St. Louis. Batman is going to be the biggest baby face in the company that night. Cody Rhodes, meanwhile, oh, I love this. I saw this, I said, I have to mention this. Cody Rhodes is going to be given some fans a personal bus tour. His personal tour bus, if they could afford the steep price tag. On location, which is WWE's official fan hospital.

hospitality partner is advertising, where they were advertising. I don't even see it listed anymore, so I don't know if they pulled it or it might be sold out. But they were advertising a Cody Rhodes bus tour package and the chance to tour his Liberty One tour bus. Liberty, of course, is the name of Cody's daughter. This is the description. Take an unforgettable tour with the American nightmare Cody Rhodes. This exclusive Cody Rhodes bus tour will give you a behind-the-scenes. look at the electric atmosphere of

WrestleMania, complete with personal stories from Cody himself. Get a rare glimpse of the production, fan zones, and restricted areas as Cody shares his experiences, inspirations, and mindset, leading into WWE's biggest event of the year. Each guest will receive a

limited edition commemorative item, along with the chance for a brief one-on-one interaction and photo with Cody. And the package, which they said is available for 12 guests total was listed at $9,950 per person and includes the following perks. A ride along with Cody Rhodes as he drives a bus to one or two iconic Las Vegas landmarks accompanied by a professional Las Vegas tour guide, a WrestleMania behind-the-scenes experience,

and a commemorative gift. You know, for 10 grand, I better be able to drive the fucking bus myself down the ramp of WrestleMania as part of Cody's entrance. Now, again, I don't see the listing on their page anymore. It would not at all shock me if they sold out already. And that's why I can't be upset about this, the way that I saw some fans are. Like, the on-location packages are meant to be premium packages. Like, there's an $8,500 package that they offer where the Undertaker will make it appearance

in your suite. I don't know if the lights go out first, and then it takes them 15 minutes to walk into the suite, and then he raises his arms and the lights come back on, I would want the full undertaker experience for that amount of money. But it's for people who can afford it and they want to blow their money on it. Like, I would never spend that much money on something like that. But evidently, there are people who will. I don't see it the same way as I do their ticket prices.

Like, to me, that's different. This is a premium thing that didn't exist before. They're just coming up with new ways to milk people out of their money. That's very different than raising ticket prices. you know, for something that in the past has cost a lot less. And people have a good reason to be upset about that, even though they keep raising prices because people continue to buy tickets at those prices. If enough people stop buying at those prices, prices will start to come down, right?

Supply and demand. But for something like this, I mean, now they're just making shit up and just seeing what works and what doesn't. I can't be mad at it. I just laugh. I just laugh at the thought of dropping 10 grand for the WWE champion to drive me to the Hoover Dam for 20 minutes. Now over on the AEW side,

Brandon Thurston, over at post wrestling, had the story on Thursday that AEW president Tony Khan made a bid for WWE during the sale process in 2023 that was ultimately won by endeavor. Now, I think a lot of us were wondering if any formal offer had been made. Nothing was said publicly or revealed publicly about it until now. The information came as a result of a court filing, actually multiple court filings, for the ongoing

W.W.E. Shareholder lawsuit that is tied into Endeavors win, whether or not other bidders were essentially freed out of the process unfairly. And the reason that we even have this information now is because in December, Thurston himself filed a notice of challenge in court regarding overly broad redactions in the filings related to the lawsuit. So all credit to Brandon on that. We now know that Base 10, a company backed by Tony Khan placed a bid on

when it was up for sale in 2023. In addition to Base 10 and Endeavor, the other bidders were Formula One parent Liberty Media and private equity firm KKR. So we knew about the others. We did not know about Tony Khan's bid and we did not know who bid what. So that information we now know.

Now, the shareholders allege that the merger process was unfair and that Endeavor was pre-selected by Vince McMahon, because Endeavor's lead executive Ari Emanuel assured McMahon's future with the company. I have always believed that is why Endeavor got it, because Vince was looking for a way to stay involved and to retain some level of power and influence, no matter what he said in that CNBC interview after the sale was announced. He was interviewed on CNBC sitting right next to Ari Emanuel. This was back during Vince's evil cartoon villain phase with the ugly pencil mustache.

he was sporting. I mean, he looked like something out of a fucking James Bond film. In that interview, Ari said the deal was contingent on Vince staying involved. He wanted Vince to be involved. As if Vince himself did not want to be involved. Like he had to be convinced. He had to be dragged, kicking and screaming. But there's a difference between thinking that, or believing that, and being able to prove it in court.

The story says, although Tony Khan is not mentioned by name in the complaint, Base 10 and All Elite Wrestling are, and their connection is made clear. The filing states, Base 10 is the owner of All Elite Wrestling, a professional wrestling promotion that plainly would enjoy significant synergies with WWE. While the complaint describes Base 10 as the owner of AEW, to be exact, legal filings unrelated to this lawsuit show AEW's parent company is a separate con family entity, Beatnik Investments, LLC.

Both AEW and Base 10 are owned by Con Family Males. members, aside from a minority stake in AEW held by Warner Brothers Discovery. Defendants in the class action suit are Vince McMahon, WWE President Nick Con, Chief Content Officer Paul Levec, and former board members and executives, George Barrios and Michelle Wilson, all of whom are alleged to have cooperated with McMahon in violation of their fiduciary duties to shareholders. Thurston's analysis shows that the offer in question from Tony Conn was the lowest of the four, valuing WWE at about $6.9 billion.

The competing bids were significantly higher. Endeavor at $8.5 billion. Liberty Media between 8.5 and 8.9 billion and KKR between 8 and 8.7 billion. Structurally, Endeavor's bid stood out because it was an all-stock transaction,

meaning investors would receive TKO shares instead of cash. The other three offers were cash deals. While the bids, other than base tens, are overlapping and monetary value, plaintiffs allege that the competing offers, especially those from Liberty and KKR, were not allowed to fully develop, precluding a truly competitive process in which the bidding would have gone higher. The bids of Endeavor, KKR, and Liberty were strong enough that those parties were granted access to a data room where they had access to non-public

information about WWE. There's no information to indicate Tony Kahn or any base 10 representative have had access to that data room, possibly because base 10's offer was decisively the lowest of the four, so it did not advance in the bidding process. Yeah, well, I'm also sure WWE would not want Tony Khan having access to that type of information. I think that goes without saying, look, it was never a serious offer insofar as WWE would have taken it seriously. Right, they were never going to sell to Tony Con. They would have sold to me before they would have sold to Tony Con. and I ain't got $8.5 billion to throw around or $6.9 billion to throw around.

And it's a good thing that they didn't sell to Tony Con because no one person should have that much power over one industry. I don't care how much of a fan Tony Con is or if he would have kept running the company separately and not laid anybody off. He may have been the best boss in the world to consolidate all of that power. The two biggest pro wrestling companies in the world

being run by one man would have been, terrible for the wrestling industry. It's kind of appropriate that I'm talking about this, 25 years almost to the day that WWE bought WCW. There are lessons to be learned from that. Now, would it be better if a private equity firm had bought them? No, that would have been terrible. But that's not even the point.

You know, Tony bought Ring of Honor many years ago, which at one time was the third biggest promotion in the country, but he bought it when it was knocking on death's door and it wasn't growing anymore. It's not growing much now either, but can you imagine him buying Ring of Honor and then scooping up WWE in addition to AEW? Like the absolute meltdown on social media would have been like nothing we've ever seen before. Like you think the tribalism is bad now. Holy shit, I can't even begin to fathom the wars that would break out if Tony Khan walked out on Raw to announce that he had bought the company.

And then he sends Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre out to the ring for a Texas death match with blood, barbed wire and bombs. As great as their revolution pay-per-view was last weekend, their dynamite follow-up on Wednesday was not very good at all. We did, though, have competing

promos from Kenny Omega and Swerve Strickland. Kenny Omega was not there. MJF was not there. Both of them cut promos, I guess backstage of Revolution, but they were not live, you know, in the building for the show. Kenny Omega, in his pre-tape promo,

said he wanted a rematch with Swerve Strickland. Swerve had beaten him previously. And Swerve now was the number one contender for the AW world title. So Kenny wants him not only to give him a rematch, but he wants Swerve to put his number one contendorship on the line. Now, if you're Swerve Strickland and you hear this, your answer is no. Why would I do that?

Why don't you just give me all your money, too, while you're at it? Like, there's got to be some incentive for Swerve, which is why in his promo, Swerve said, Well, we got to sweeten things up a little bit here. So if you want your rematch, you have to put something up to. And what he wants Kenny to put up is his executive vice president power, because Kenny is an EVP in the company. Now, what that would entail, we don't know. Like, does it mean he's got the power to make matches?

Does he have the power to hire and fire people? Does he get his own personal parking space? We don't know. But he wants power. So if Kenny agrees to put his EVP power on the line, then he'll agree to the match. And he must have agreed because we found out later on in the night, per Tony Khan, that the match will happen on Dynamite this coming Wednesday. It will be Kenny Omega one-on-one with swerve Strickland.

And presumably, the winner of that match will then go on to challenge MJF for the championship in Vancouver next month at Dynasty. That's very appealing, the idea of Kenny Omega challenging for a world title in Canada. I don't know if they're going to do it, but Dynasty would certainly be a good place to do so. Now, Will Osprey came back at Revolution, made his big return, and then had his first matchback on Dynamite on Wednesday, but he also revealed the timeline for his recovery

and disclosed that he was only medically cleared about 18 days before his return at Revolution. But he had double fusion surgery on September 17th. He got cleared on February 1, February 1,000. 25th and then made his return on March 15th. So that's a fairly quick turnaround for a double fusion neck surgery. But he was out there on Dynamite Wednesday against Blake Christian. I mean, this was just, again, Christian was doing most of the kind of high-flying, high-risk, crazy stuff.

Osprey, I think, kept things pretty tame. It was his first match back. So just trying to get his feet wet and just kind of get back into the middle of things here. Obviously, he won. I mean, it goes without saying, I would have led this show off with the news that Blake Christian beats Will Osprey, and Osprey's first match back had that happened. That did not happen, though. And then he made it very clear when the match was over that he wanted to get his hands on John Moxley and the Death Riders. Now, it is also very, very convenient, a very fortunate timing here for Tony Khan that Will Osprey is back right at the exact time.

that tickets went on sale for their return to Wembley Stadium. And after their first day of the public on sale for all in London, which is at the end of August, the company moved nearly 20,000 tickets on a setup of 37,000. Now, that will obviously be increased as they sell more tickets. They will open up more sections. Their first time in that building, the first big stadium show, okay, I'm not counting the Arthur Ashe Stadium stuff.

And it was their first show in the UK. they sold somewhere between 70 and 80,000 tickets, which is an incredible feat. No other wrestling company outside of WWE can claim that. Their second time at Wembley, which was two years ago, they were down to around 50,000, which is still a big success. I mean, that's a huge number,

but the novelty had worn off a little bit. So we'll see how fast tickets move once they start announcing actual matches for the show, and we'll see what they have Osprey doing. You know, is he in the main event? Is he going to be challenging for the AW World Title? If so, we'll find out how much of a draw he really is if they build that entire show around him. Because he can get his revenge right now on John Moxley.

I mean, that's fine. But if the idea is to put the continental title on him, I really don't see the point in doing so. You know, if he's back and he's in tip-top shape and he's ready to rock, you know, you should be very fortunate. He's back in time for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament, which is still a few months away from kicking off. I don't know why you wouldn't tell that story. The big comeback story for Will Osprey. Wednesday Owen goes to the main event in his home country to challenge for the world championship. You know, the story is right there.

The only match we have official right now for their dynasty pay-per-view, which is just a few weeks away, is Adam Copeland and Christian Cage taking on FTR for the AW tag team titles. We don't know who is wrestling MJF, although I presume we will know that after the OMAG. Swerve match tomorrow. Osprey against Moxley could be a direction unless they do Osprey against Pack. Pack from the death riders.

He attacked Osprey on Wednesday, so it could be a TV match, but maybe they do that on pay-per-view. Save Osprey and Moxley for double or nothing. You know, double-or-nothing is coming here to New York City. Memorial Day weekend. I could see them saving that as a big match for that show.

Andrade El Edelho, he was paid off in a backstage segment. He was handed a briefcase full of cash. to take out Darby Allen as a favor to the AEW World Champion MJF. So Andrade against Darby, that could be on that show as well. We'll have to see. They're going to have to flesh that card out pretty quick. One person who was not on Dynamite on Wednesday was Rhonda Rousey. There has not been much of an update on Rhonda Rousey after she showed up as a surprise at their revolution pay-per-view and made headlines.

She was not on dynamite, and there is no indication that there are even plans in place for her to wrestle for AEW. Although if she did, it would not be until after her fight with Gina Carano. That is May 16th on Netflix. She ain't doing no wrestling before then. But again, on that pay-per-view, she got into it a little bit with Timeless Tony Storm, after Tony got a win over Marina Shafir, who has been friends with Rhonda for many, many years. Dave Meltzer says that Rhonda's appearance had more to do with her Vendetta with TKO right now than anything else. So she may have just been looking to stick it to them by showing up, and they're really is nothing planned beyond that right now.

You know, she's not had very many cordial things to say about her last WWE run. And then more recently, she's talked about Dana White, passing on the fight with her and Gina, even though they did have conversations about it. So I guess this is one way for her to stick it to them, I guess. You know, again, if Rousey's fight does well, especially if she wins, I could see Tony Khan wanting to be in the Ronda Rousey business for a match or two. but I don't see it as something that AEW fans are going to be clamoring to see. I don't see it as something that is going to be of interest to them.

And Tony is pretty in tune with what the hardcores for his product want to see. I don't think Ronda Rousey is one of those things. But any potential match with Tony Storm is out the window anyway because we found out that Tony Storm is going to be out indefinitely. She was scheduled to wrestle Marina Shafir again on Dynamite last week, no holds barred. She showed up to the building, and at the last minute in the hours before the show went on the air, she got pulled from dynamite. Mina Shirakawa took her place against Marina instead, and they shot this angle backstage where someone took out Tony off camera and she was found lying on the floor with a pool of blood next to her head. So that's how they chose to write her off TV. It's not said to be an injury. Even the day of, they were expecting her to wrestle.

Something happened, though, and they pulled her. And Fightful is saying that AEW is prepared for Tony not to be cleared to wrestle for at least the rest of 2026 at a minimum. So draw your own conclusions from that, okay? I've got mine. That sounds like happy news for her, not sad news, but until something gets announced, it's all speculation. But that's a big name to lose from that women's division. Thankfully for them, that division is loaded with talent. And I mean, they're about to get Mercedes-Money back.

She has yet to work a match for them this year. She's been traveling the world, dropping all of her independent belts. I think she's got three of them left. She has another title defense in Winnipeg on March 31st, and then she could be on her way back to TV. It just so happens that Dynamite is in Winnipeg the very next night. And for all of the publicity that AEW got out of that Ronda Rousey appearance a revolution. It was

overshadowed by the online discussion around Rikoschet and his dumb tweet last week to an elderly fan who dared to make fun of his acting ability. Ten lashes for you, Grandma. Evidently this warranted a reply

where Rikosha went to this lady's profile saw from her bio that she suffers from multiple sclerosis and came back at her with I'm glad you got MS. it was a deplorable thing for him to say. And it's not something you could just hide behind by claiming, oh, you're a heel, right?

You're no longer speaking as a heel when you double down on it afterwards and attempt to justify it because other people say mean things to you and your wife on social media. That doesn't sound like something he would be saying if he was a heel character. And this is not him, by the way, justifying it by calling himself a heel. This is everyone else who was attempting to justify it. by saying, oh, he's a heel, right?

It doesn't really work. It doesn't really apply here in this situation. If there are people making death threats towards him and his wife, that needs to stop. But it's a bad look when you throw a pity party for yourself and expect to get sympathy out of people, having said what he said. All that's going to do is get even more people to say awful things about you. It's like he can't help himself. So he left the tweet up for days and then suddenly deleted the tweet and posted an apology

saying, I took out my hatred for the IWC on Sandy, which is the woman's name, and inadvertently others who were affected by MS. She didn't deserve it, and for that, I sincerely apologize. Moving forward, I will do better. Fine apology, but forgive me if I question how genuine he really is, given that he was doubling down on things and calling people pussies. His word, not mine. He was calling them that before he finally posted that apology. It felt very much like someone had gotten in his ear.

And now we find out that someone did get in his ear, an old friend of his, a former wrestler from the independent scene, and who just so happens to work as a producer backstage in AEW, the company that Rikashe currently works for. Even though we've been told by various outlets like Fightful and the Wrestling Observer that AEW did not tell Rikishay to take the tweet down and apologize, it was someone who works for AEW who ended up suggesting that he should take the tweet down. but I guess AEW did not tell him directly to take anything down.

That producer in question is said to be Chris Hero. That's according to Dave Meltzer. At least someone with common sense was able to get to him. I'm sure AEW was just tickled pink with all of the publicity this got, including coverage on TMZ. And for someone who hates the IWC so much, he sure does spend a lot of time online engaging with them. Former WWE star Ted DiBiase Jr. was acquitted of all charges in his fraud case last week.

This comes per the Clarion Ledger. A federal jury on Friday found Ted DiBiase Jr. not guilty of all criminal counts in his indictment for his involvement in Mississippi's welfare fraud scandal. Jurors who heard from at least two dozen witnesses during the trial deliberated on Friday for approximately four hours before returning the not. guilty verdict on 13 criminal counts. And the counts range from everything from wire fraud to money laundering. He was acquitted on all of them, and he avoided a potential maximum sentence of 185 years in federal prison. Prosecutors said DiBiase misappropriated millions of dollars in federal funds, intended for

needy families and low-income individuals in Mississippi. They argued DeBiase received money tied to welfare programs through sham contracts for services that were never provided. And the defense argued DiBiase was a lawful contractor. The scheme involved the misuse of more than $77 million in federal aid given to the state under programs, including temporary assistance for needy families. Federal government asserted the DiBiase Jr. A son of 1980s-era WWE wrestler Ted the million-dollar man, DeBiasey. They accused him of stealing more than a million dollars in federal public assistance funds by using sham contracts with two nonprofit organizations.

organizations that controlled the funds. And the money allegedly came from two federal public assistance programs. The government also alleged DiBiase used the money to purchase a truck, a boat, a trip to Disney, and roughly $1.5 million lakeside home in the Madison community of Reunion, which the federal government has since seized. The defense contended the DiBiase was and is a kind professional businessman who was motivated by a desire to help people. and they argue that nobody who testified during the trial could say the DiBiase wasn't performing his role.

Seven people are awaiting state or federal sentencing after pleading guilty to their alleged involvement in the welfare scheme and agreeing to aid the U.S. Attorney's Office in this case. One of those seven, by the way, is DeBiase's brother Brett, who has already pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the government. So cue all the speculations. about DiBiase being the one seen on the phone with Randy Orton on Smackdown. We're going to get ourselves a legacy reunion at WrestleMania? I don't think we need to see that, but it's not going to stop people from speculating on it.

And I wanted to mention this. This was the interview that Ariel did on his show last Tuesday, which I didn't get to address because I had just wrapped up recording this podcast. But Ariel did an interview with Resort. of the authors of pain when they were back in WWE. He was a guest on the Ariel Helwani show last Tuesday, Zim Salmani. He opened up about AOP's WWE release, talked about how it stemmed from an incident at a house show in December of 2024 when they were working against the Wyatt 6. And this is what he said.

He goes, yes, there was an incident. Very unprofessional from one of those guys. I don't know their names. I don't want to go into it too deeply. there was an incident at one of the holiday tours that we did. Somebody tried to switch up the match during the match, and that's just a no-go for me, especially if you've been in the company for a little bit and we were already there for a long time. You know, you don't do that. And yeah, I just had to let somebody know, and that was the end of it. Now, he didn't name which member of the

Wyatt Six he was talking about, I'm guessing it was either Dexter Loomis or Joe Gacy. But he said the change in the middle of the match had nothing to do with changing the result of the match. It concerned certain moves that the Wyatt person did not want to take, which relates to an argument backstage. He said, they tried to switch up the match in the middle of the match, so I'm a professional. Even if I got to take a beating in the wrestling ring, I do it. And if you're going to be a scared little, you know, bitch, then it's not my fault. I will let you know backstage.

You know, calling spots in the ring is not unheard of. It just sounds like he didn't have the experience to do it. And it sounds like the minute something had to be changed, he freaked out because it deviated slightly from what it was supposed to be. That's just my takeaway from it. I don't know if there was any pre-existing heat between the Wyets and AOP. I wasn't in the ring that night, so I don't know. But Salmani says he's happy with what AOP accomplished in WWE, and he is at peace with how

their run came to an end. He was never 100% comfortable in pro wrestling. and he feels that shoot-fighting organizations like BKFC are the right place for him. You know, the authors of pain, they had two different stints in WWE, one with NXT and then one on the main roster. They had Paul Ellering both times as their manager. The last time they were a part of the Final Testament faction with Carrying Cross. And he actually commented on Carrying Cross as well. So, Mani said that WWE, in his view, dropped the ball by not giving Cross a bigger push.

He said, same thing with him. He got promised so fucking much. much, and they dropped the ball on that guy. Very sad. And I concur with that. I definitely think there was more that could have been done. I mean, if you watch Smackdown now, it's comical. You see what they have Alistair Black and Zelina doing on Friday nights, and they basically just, they've given them the carrying cross and scarlet gimmick, basically. And they're doing more or less the same thing that Cross was doing. Can you honestly watch those shows on Fridays and say that that act is any more or less over than Cross was.

Cross was actually getting some chance and cheers from the crowd towards the end there. But obviously it didn't work out. I'm happy to see he's doing well. You know, he's won some championships in MLW and other promotions on the independent scene. But I agree with him on that. As far as AOP is concerned,

you know, I, O, AOP, they were not, like, a great attraction on the show. They were not, like, great wrestlers that were going to be featured. in long matches or anything like that, I think they were more suited to be someone's muscle. And so I don't think the Final Testament stuff was necessarily a good fit for them. But I think pairing them off with somebody is kind of their heavies and letting them kind of serve in that role. Probably would have been better for them.

I can't speak to their promo ability. I certainly saw the promo that Salmani got cut after whatever that fight was and he was dropping F bombs every three seconds. So, I mean, that was not going to work, obviously, on WWE television. I can't speak to what kind of wrestling promo he would have been. I think there was a role for them. But at the same time, it's like, look, you know, guys get swept up in these mass waves of releases. And they were always going to be on the bubble because they weren't really doing much on the show. When you're not really being heavily featured on the show and you're not really bringing all that much to the table, let's just be honest here.

It's sort of low-hanging fruit when it comes time to decide who stays and who goes. So I don't think they were long for WWE anyway. And based on what he said, it sounds like he was never really comfortable there anyway. So everybody in this situation seems to have ended up where they were supposed to be. Anyway, a couple of questions here from you guys. Let me just blast through these real quick. Again, you could always email me to Solomonster at gmail.com. You could also tweet me on X at Solomonster, just use the hashtag uncrowned.

If you have a question or a comment. Chris from northern New Jersey You say that Cody Rhodes can't turn heel Because WWE has nobody to replace him We don't need top stars to be a kissing baby suit wearing champion It sucks, it gets old Austin and Rock were never that guy If Cody goes heel

All you have to do is play Trick Williams music Let him stroll to the ring during a Cody promo In his Lemon Pepper Stepas And let him, I love saying that And let him go He could be himself and the fans would go wild. Oh, I don't doubt the fans would go wild. The fans go wild for him now.

Look at the reactions he's getting. I think Trick could be that guy. I mean, that's not a bad option there. I still feel like it's a little premature. I mean, we're talking about somebody being ready on day one right now. Let's say they did a turn at WrestleMania. Who steps into that spot? Who steps into Cody's shoes?

He's not just the top guy on Friday. He's the top guy in the company. His face is plastered everywhere. Everything is just kind of. built around him. He's their their QB1, right, as he calls himself. I don't know the trick is ready to be QB1 just yet. That's my only real concern. They don't, trick, trick I think can get there. I just think it's premature to be talking about him in the next like two months. Okay, becoming that person. And Jonathan, from Erie, Pennsylvania, I was watching the WWE event.

They recently posted on the vault on YouTube, kind of standard stuff. And then all of a sudden, there's the match between Brett Hart and Ricky Steamboat. I love being able to go back and see matches like this. I wanted to let you know in case you had not seen it. Oh, I saw it. I'm a big fan of the WWE Vault on YouTube. I check it every day. I keep a playlist of stuff.

I'm so backlogged on things to watch. They did upload recently, I think this was last week, a full house show from the Boston Garden, March 8, 1986. And the cool thing about, you mentioned Brett Hart and Ricky Steamboat, that is still the only match that those two ever had together, one on one. And that was originally supposed to happen at WrestleMania 2. It was also the first time, by the way, that Guerrilla Monsu never referred to Brett as the excellence of execution was during that match. But that was the original plan.

And Brett was super excited about it. He talked about it in his book, they were going to wrestle a WrestleMania 2. and that was going to be a big, big deal for Brett, right, who would come in as a tag team guy. And he was going to go in there and have a big singles match with Steamboat, who we all know how great Steamboat was. So they get to the building for this Boston Garden show. And it might have been Chief Jay Strong, but whoever it was pulled Brett aside and gave him the bad news that plans had changed. And that match would not be taking place at WrestleMania any longer. They were going to have it that night.

And, you know, Brett was devastated by this. and he basically treated that match as his WrestleMania. Now, imagine if we'd gotten that match of WrestleMania, how great that would have been. It was a great match. I would have loved to have seen it on a grander scale, but I guess it ends up being a trivia footnote, the only time Brett Hart and Ricky Steamboat ever wrestled.

Boston Garden. And one last thing, DDT Pro star Kazusada Higuchi, who was one of the Japanese promotions' biggest stars and had worked there since getting into pro wrestling in 2014 after a career in sumo. He officially retired this week at just 37 years old, after a medical checkup discovered a very serious issue with his neck. The official announcement from DDT reads as follows,

during a regular health checkup conducted by the promotion, a subluxation of the first and second cervical vertebrae was detected, and a doctor determined that continuing to participate in contact sports would be dangerous. In light of this, Huguichi, his doctor and the promotion carefully reviewed and discussed the possibility of him continuing his career. But unfortunately, we have reached the

conclusion that he must retire. Now, my understanding is that a subluxation of the first and second vertebrae it can occur due to trauma, and it causes instability in the upper part of the neck, which could then lead to pressure on the spinal cord.

Two years ago, he took several months off to heal up from a cervical hernia. So he has had neck issues in the past. He came back a year ago this month. He won their king of DDT tournament. He won their open weight title. So this was a big blow to the promotion. Clearly though, he made the right call for his health and well-being. No one wants to see him all crippled up because he didn't know when to stop. Or worse. I mean, I hear about the neck and I can't help but think about Masawa dying in the ring. Nobody wants to see something like that again. At a press conference they held, Higuchi said that he wasn't feeling any symptoms,

but that his neck has reached its limit. He said, well, I can no longer compete in the ring. I believe life goes on, so I intend to take a new step forward and continue to do my best. Thank you all so much for the past 12 years. And a retirement ceremony will be held for him at Corkan Hall in Tokyo on April 5th,

but there will be no final match for him on that show. So all the best to him. Again, keep those questions coming. and don't forget, we now have a dedicated feed for the uncrowned wrestling show that you can subscribe to. You can subscribe to both, this and the main Ariel Helwani show feed, but you'll be able to find the show on both feeds going forward. For all my other content, you can subscribe on YouTube.

Just search for Solomonster Sounds Off. Next Tuesday, it's episode 8. I'm Jason Solomon, and when it comes to the news, if you didn't know, now you know. I'll see you guys next week. Thank you.